史金淞《又园》局部

This Is It

Yard from Shi Jinsong

Yard is a traditional and yet vague name. It could refers to the small room where is equipped with flowers and rocks, such as a garden or a side room. It could also be the thrilling private club that owns picturesque landscape, such as the legendary Grand View Garden…or those with elegant parks in South China. All these could be concluded as yards.
 
Various in types, a yard is in fact a place for people to build their fancy wonderland, where the friends could gossip now and then. The view and the style of a yard are all up to its owner and designer. Therefore the people connect the building of a yard to a spiritual home. This does make sense. After all not all the people could see a whole view of a reigned country. Then such a place becomes a comfort for them. A pile of edged stones are called “a hill”, and a pool with water is called “a river”… as time passes, this becomes culture.

How to view the universe in the water? How to find the charm of hills on the stones… “One flower makes a whole world, and a leaf could be Buddha” … to taste the feeling of “the peach blossoms flows with the water as the spring goes” as the seasons change… find a tiny sorrow and write some poems. What has the world to do with me… be self-content… year after year…not matter positive or negative, this may be the wisdom that has discovered and formed by the Chinese as they experienced the change of societies in centuries.

To me “yard” equals a world view, a theory. It is philosophy as well as art.

Neither commendatory nor derogatory, but neutral.
 
Lantern Festival of 2012, at You Garden